Paragade of Destiny
by Sailor Centauri1
Summary: Commander Alexis Katalina Shepard has had a hard life, but nothing could have prepared her for what was in store from her when she accepted the commission on the SSV Normandy. Adventure, love, loss, and more than a few curveballs out of left field. Rated M due to swearing and future smut.


Disclaimer: BioWare owns all. I am just borrowing their characters for a little head-cannon fun. I will put them back when I'm finished telling my story.

Authors Notes: This is a FemShep x Kaidan Alenko story going from ME1 to the end of ME3 (with an epilogue when I get there). I have been working on this for over six months now, and finally decided to release some to the world. Please be gentle, this is my baby project. Constructive comments are great, but no flaming please.

* * *

The smell of rotting garbage still burns her nostrils after all these years, but she's able to push the urge to gag aside as long as she doesn't concentrate on it for too long.

As she walks further into the alley, a shortcut to where her friend Liam has been hiding out for the last few weeks, pair of strong arms grip her shoulders and spin her around. His face is hidden in shadow, but she knows his features almost as well as she knows her own. Parts are like staring into a mirror; others are foreign, taking after a father neither of them ever knew.

"You're being stupid Alexis! Those credits could finally get us off the streets and into the life we deserve!" he shouts at her. "How can you be so selfish?!"

"Don't call me that!" she hisses as she pulls herself out of his grasp. "No one needs to know that name. And how the hell can you call ME selfish when it's YOU who is perfectly willing to turn him over to a bunch of guys in suits for MONEY!"

He scoffs at her. "What, you mean you haven't even told HIM?"

She glances away from him, her bottom lip between her teeth. It was her tell, and he knows it.

"You're giving up the chance at us getting the hell out of here and you haven't even told him your real name?" he is incredulous. "He's a freakin' biotic Sand junkie Alexis! He's only exploiting you for cheap Sand and sex!"

Alexis glares darkly at him. "For your information, I have never sold him any sand, AND we aren't like that. We're friends; no more, no less." Her voice is deadpan, a very dangerous sign. If he weren't her brother, he would have been lying on the ground with a broken jaw for speaking to her like that. But as it is, Jon Shepard knows that she would never actually hit him.

"So why the hell are you protecting him?" he asks in exasperation.

"Because he's my friend Jon! The first one I've had since we ran away, and I am NOT giving him up for money!"

Just as she starts to turn away, a spray of strong coppery smelling liquid hits her face. She brings her hand up to wipe it away and turns back towards him only to watch in stunned, apparent slow motion as a stain of deepest red blooms from his abdomen. Their eyes meet and she's sure that the horror and shock displayed on his face mirrors her own.

He clasps the wound with one hand in a vain attempt to stem the flow, and begins to reach for her when a hot, excruciating pain slices across her face just below her right eye. She clutches and covers her eye, feeling a scream rip from her throat as another horrible pain tears though her left shoulder. She throws herself down behind a dumpster and looks over with her good eye to see if he's also hidden himself. But her eyes fall on his body. Jon Shepard, her twin brother and only remaining family, is lying face down, unmoving in a pool of blood.

Sharp grief clutches her heart in a vicelike grip. Anger and adrenaline mix and push her own physical pain aside as she reaches for the pistol that's fallen from his hand and is lying not too far from her. But before she can reach it, it's kicked away and skitters down the alley out of sight. She looks up and glares at the three people standing over her. Randel, one of the Reds top enforcers, loosely clutches his rifle as he looks down at her, amused at her injured state.

The men beside him are arguing with him; telling him that without her alive, they will never be able to lure the biotic out of hiding, and he will never see a single credit. She glances over at them and feels more hot anger surge through her; the suited guys that had approached her had, apparently, found someone else willing to comply.

Her eyes flash back to Randel as he kneels down in front of her, placing his rifle beside him. "Lina, Lina, Lina." He mockingly scolds. "You know, if Jon had just done what was asked of him, none of this would have happened." He lightly caresses her cheek with the back of his hand. "But now that we're here, I think I'm going to enjoy toying with you." His eyes flash suddenly, and before she can do more than gasp, his hands are around her throat and he's lifting her up off the ground.

Her feet dangle just above the ground as he holds her at his eye level and begins to flex his fingers around her throat. She claws at his hands, trying to break his hold while fighting the black spots that are starting to invade her vision. He laughs at her feeble attempt before throwing her across the alley like nothing more than a rag doll.

Alexis' head impacts the wall and she falls to the ground in a heap. She tries to push herself up but Randel is there quickly and delivers a kick to her midsection. A cry of pain escapes her lips and she has to fight the blackness that is now permeating her vision.

She distantly hears the suited men shouting at Randel to stop, but she knows he won't. A part of her nearly laughs at the fact that they didn't know his reputation before approaching him. The steroids he took made him one tough son of a bitch, but they also made him the meanest member of the Reds; only sent out when their leader, Callen, wanted to cause extreme pain. He was like a rabid dog, and he and Jon had clashed more than once when being forced to work together. 'Psychopath' is what Jon had called him.

Randel steps back, laughing as he watches her attempt to push herself up from the ground. "I've wanted to do this for a long time Lina," a sickening grin spreads across his face as he stalks towards her again. "By this time tomorrow, you'll be BEGGING me to kill you. Who knows? I might even do it."

Just as he bends down to reach for her again, a strange blue/black glow surrounds him and he freezes in place. She hears the suited men shout and pushes herself up, turning her head towards the mouth of the alley behind her.

Someone is there, but she is so weak she can't get her eyes to focus enough to see who it is. The two men rush past her towards her rescuer. One of them is activating his Omni-Tool while the other draws a pistol from under his jacket. She hears a loud crash and turns to see that Randel has been thrown none too gently away from her and into a dumpster.

Adrenaline again surges through her as she realizes who her rescuer must be. She grabs for the knife she has hidden in her boot and surges after the two suited men.

Before either of them can do more than gasp, a whirl of strawberry-blond hair dances across their vision and the cold bite of steel cuts across their throats. The last thing they see as their life's blood sprays the alley floor is the bloodied crouching form of Alexis Katalina Shepard, a former member of the Tenth Street Reds known as Lina the Cat.

The last trickle of adrenaline leaves her as their bodies crumple, and the knife falls from her now limp grasp as the darkness crashes through her feeble mental barrier. She feels a pair of arms encircle her and gently guide her to the ground.

"I'm sorry Lina," he whispers as he cradles her close. "I'm so sorry."

* * *

A strangled gasp escaped the throat of Lieutenant Commander Alexis Shepard as she shot upright in her bunk. The thin military blanket is almost entirely on the floor, and what little of it is still on the bed is clinging to her sweat-drenched body.

Her eyes quickly swept the room, searching for a threat years in the past, as her mind attempted to reconcile with her actual location: women's temporary quarters, Arcturus Station, 2183.

She flopped back down on the mattress and slowly blew out a long breath, attempting to calm her racing heart. It had been a long time since she'd dreamt about that night. She looked over at the small shelf next to her bunk and retrieved her Omni-Tool, flicking it on to display the time and groaned loudly as she realized there are still six hours until roll call for her new assignment, meaning she'd only been asleep for about three hours.

Knowing that it will be impossible for her to get back to sleep, she kicked off the remaining covers, and grabbed her shower kit and a fresh BDU from her packed footlocker. If she was going to be awake, she may as well get ready, and nothing shook the cobwebs better than a shower and fresh battle dress uniform. She had personnel reports to study, and a mission brief to go over before reporting in. As Captain Anderson's new Executive Officer, it was her job to know the crew better than they knew themselves, though she really wondered how much more she'd be able to glean from the reports alone. 

* * *

One good thing about being awake so early was that she was able to slip onto the ship unnoticed, claim a good bunk, and stow her gear without anyone staring at her in openmouthed awe. While she loved being an N7 operative, she HATED all the attention her accomplishments drew.

Sitting alone in the mess, Shepard pored over datapads containing the personnel reports of the officers she would be serving with. She was vaguely familiar with the pilot Jeff Moreau, nickname "Joker". Anderson had told her about how he'd commandeered the Normandy during its test flight to prove that he was the best man to pilot her. She had to admit, the guy had stones.

With a smirk she flipped to the next officer; Navigator Charles Pressly, formerly of the SSV Agincourt. The sight of that ship name gave Shepard a small thrill. It and its contingent of Marines had been some of the first to reach Elysium and help her push back the pirate attack that had earned her invitation to the ICT program.

She was just reaching for her coffee when she heard the doors from the CIC hiss open and heavy, armored footfalls descending the stairs. A frown creased her brow as she listened closer.

_Those aren't human,_ she thought as she lowered her data pad and reached into her boot for the knife she always kept there. With fluid movements, she drew the knife and silently ducked around to the opposite side of the elevator shaft. The footsteps stopped at the bottom of the stairs and a palpable silence fell over the deck. Shepard heard the click and expansion of a pistol, and clutched her knife a little tighter as she edged closer to the corner of the shaft.

A cool, dual-toned voice echoed around the deck. "I know you're there, human. Show yourself and state your business on this vessel."

Shepard's frown deepened. _A turian? What the hell would a turian be doing on an Alliance ship?_ The Alliance and Hierarchy had collaborated on the Normandy, but all of their checks had been completed during the initial flight tests. Nothing in her brief said the Hierarchy was sending someone to observe the shakedown.

"Commander Shepard. Executive Officer of the SSV Normandy," she said as she stepped around the corner to face the intruder, her knife in a defensive grip in front of her.

The two of them stared at each other for a moment before the turian's mandibles twitched with what Shepard recognized as a smirk; he lowered his pistol.

"Well met, Commander," he said as he collapsed and holstered the pistol back at his side. "Nihlus Kryik, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance. I will be observing this operation on behalf of the Citadel Council."

Shepard's eyes widened slightly in surprise as she sheathed her knife. "Why would the Council send a Spectre on an Alliance shakedown cruise to a human colony?"

"This vessel was a joint venture between the Alliance, Turian Hierarchy, and Citadel Council. I was selected as a representative of both the Council and Hierarchy to observe this 'shakedown run', as you call it."

Shepard was silent and watched as Nihlus walked passed her and into the mess area towards the lockers. It wasn't that she had a problem with turians; far from it. She had fought alongside a few during her career. They were highly competent strategists and fierce warriors. It was more the fact that the Council had sent a Spectre; she knew enough about them to know that they were far too valuable an asset to send on mundane missions. Her instincts were telling her there was more going on here than was in her briefing.

With a slight shrug of her shoulders she headed back to the mess table to gather her datapads, feeling that it was probably time to prepare to meet Anderson.

"Please inform me when your captain arrives," Nihlus said as he began checking and storing his weapons in the locker next to hers. "I have matters of a sensitive nature that I wish to discuss with him."

Shepard looked up at him, her face a mask of passive neutrality, and nodded. This was going to be an interesting voyage.


End file.
